Hutch flipped another pancake and gripped the spatula a little tighter.
“It would figure that it’s some psycho trying to get at Peter Fallon. Why he just doesn’t go after the asshole directly is beyond me,” Sawyer muttered.
“We couldn’t get that lucky. Besides, how’s psycho boy supposed to know that Peter Fallon could give a shit about Reggie?” Cam asked.
Hutch grimaced. “Good point.”
“Maybe we should hold a press conference and announce to the world that the best way to punish Peter Fallon has nothing to do with his daughter,” Reggie said in a bitter tone.
They all looked up to see Reggie standing in the doorway of the kitchen, her face pale and drawn.
“Shit,” Sawyer whispered.
Cam stood and crossed to where Reggie was standing and took her hand. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have opened my big mouth.”
She raised an eyebrow. “What are you apologizing for, telling the truth?”
He shook his head. “No, just for being an unfeeling jerk, for blurting it out like that.”
“You’re not the unfeeling jerk,” she said pointedly. “My father holds that title.”
She moved past Cam and walked over to where Hutch was plating the first batch of pancakes.
“Smells good. Are those mine?”
He stared balefully at her. “You drag your ass out of bed last and expect to get the first plate of food?”
She grinned. “Umm, yes?”
He dropped a kiss on her lips. “Sit down and I’ll slap some ham on the plate and bring it over.”
“Don’t forget the syrup,” she added as she walked around to sit beside Sawyer.
Cam walked back over and slid onto the stool next to her. Hutch forked a piece of ham onto her plate and then set it on the counter in front of her. Then he reached into the drawer for a fork and snagged the syrup sitting by the skillet.
“Eat up,” he said as he placed the objects next to her plate.
She turned the bottle down and poured copious amounts of syrup over the stack of pancakes. Hutch tried not to wince, but even Sawyer, Mr. Sweet Tooth, was cringing.
She capped the bottle and then licked her thumb. “Are you guys working today? I thought you said you had a tight deadline or something.”
“Well, technically, Cam has the tight deadline. He’s the architect. Hutch and I are just the grunts who do the hard labor. I turned over the two job sites that are under construction to our foreman so that we could be here,” Sawyer said.
She lowered her fork back to her plate and glanced over at Sawyer. “I’m curious about something. Your office is in Houston. You have a house in Houston. And yet here we are in this brand-new house an hour away. Obviously my little run-in with Mr. Freak Show had nothing to do with your relocating here. What about your business?”
Sawyer glanced at Cam and then at Hutch, and it amused Hutch that there was a light of panic in Sawyer’s eyes. No doubt he would love for Cam, Mr. Smooth, to step in and take this one.
Cam cleared his throat, and Hutch had to look away or risk laughing. Yep, he’d nailed that one.
“We’ve had plans to relocate here for a good while,” Cam said.
“Obviously,” Reggie said dryly. “This house must have taken eons to build.”
“For now we’re keeping our office in Houston. We have four crews working under us and two others that we contract with when we’re pressed for manpower. I can draw plans anywhere. We’ll have some traveling back and forth to do, but it’s only an hour.”
Her eyebrows drew together. “I had no idea you guys were doing so well. I mean I knew you had a great start, but didn’t realize you’d expanded so much.”
“If you’d spent more time around us and less time running balls to the wall, you’d know that,” Sawyer pointed out.
